Keeping Up With the Joneses

McKay turned 18 months on May 4th and we went to his well-child check today. He is normally a super-friendly baby, but he was NOT cooperative with the nurses or doctor. He would only let them check him out if they did the exact same thing to Max first, and fortunately Max, the nurses, and doctor were good sports.  First, the stats: Weight: 26 lbs (64th percentile) Height: 33 inches (50th percentile) Head: 18.5 inches (37th percentile) I think he is the first of my boys who have been above the 1st percentile at 18 months! As the doctor said, he isn't obese or overweight, just big kid. He is very healthy, far exceeding all of the developmental milestones the doctor asked about. He had a bad reaction to penicillin a few months ago, and then when he got another ear infection a few weeks ago he got a different medication that gave him the worst diaper rash I've ever seen as well as thrush in his mouth. But he is mostly recovered from those, and aside from th...

Over the last month, the kids have been learning a lot of fun things in school. Mason did his 4th grade County Report on Wayne County, and Max has been learning about sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks in Kindergarten. We thought it would be a fun idea to take a quick trip to southern Utah to explore rocks and see Wayne County. We left Friday after school and came back Sunday night. It was a great time. The weather was perfect--about 60 degrees with a little breeze, so when we were hiking we were warm but not too hot. Because I thought camping would be awful with an 18-month-old (and I hate sleeping with lizards), we stayed in a hotel. Turns out a hotel room with an 18-month old isn't so great either. We reserved a "family suite" which was really just one huge room with 2 king beds, a pull-out couch, and a crib.  McKay screamed when we put him in the crib, but when we tried to have him sleep with us he thought it was a party and would just go from bed to bed k...

I'm so proud of Myles for getting baptized on Saturday. He is someone that tends to be nervous about doing things in front of lots of people, so for a while we thought we might have to have a private baptism with just his little family. But as it drew closer he became more comfortable with more people coming, and eventually he was excited about the day being all about him. We were so thankful for the people that were there to support him: Gma & Gpa Goates, Gma & Gpa Delta, Gma & Gpa Milne, Candi's family, Eric's family, Jessica's family, William, Joy's family, Aunt Maralyn and Scott, Norm, Carolyn, and Spencer Jones, Heather Kroeber (Primary Pres), Brother Jensen (Bishopric), and his friends Caleb and Hunter with their parents. Phew, I hope I didn't miss anyone. I love this kid so dang much.  Me and my buddy.  Just a little nervous about what is coming.  His dad was happy to baptize and confirm him. His grandpas were the witnes...

These four little blondies sure do keep me on my toes. Here are just some random pictures from the last few weeks: Little McKay is getting more cute and smart everyday. For about a month there I was convinced he was a devil child because all he did was had tantrums and disobeyed. But after his molars came in and he got through a bad ear infection, he has transformed into an angel baby again! He is learning so much, surprises us with new words everyday, understands everything we say, and keeps us all laughing all day long.  I snapped this picture of the three big boys doing homework one afternoon. It was a miracle that all three were sitting at the table and actually working at the same time. When they are motived (usually with screen time) they can get their homework done pretty quickly.  I helped at the annual Edgemont Extravaganza, a school fair where the school makes 10-15K each year for the PTA and to help with field trips, etc. Max wanted me to take this pic...

Myles decided he wanted a science party for his birthday and I had a really fun time planning it. I'm no professional party planner or lifestyle blogger, but here are some highlights for the grandparents: I found this edit-able invitation on pinterest so it was super-easy. I just printed it on our home printer.  I bought 40 test-tubes on Amazon for $10 and used them for the invitations. I just rolled the invitation up, put a HAZARD sticker on it (printed at home on label paper) and stuck it in the test tube. Myles delivered them to his "scientist" friends. Because I knew the party would be messy we agreed he could invite 8 people. He invited 4 people from his class, 3 people from his carpool, and Ari (our nanny's son). Mason and Max also participated so we had 11 little boys in all.  I set up the table with a plastic tablecloth (turned out to be a great idea), some of the ingredients for the experiments (sprite, hydrogen peroxide, vinegar) in bottles wit...

The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby was a big deal this year. For Marshall. Since Myles was only one week away from being 8 and being eligable to race, they made an exception and let him participate. Both Mason and Myles were thrilled about participating, but no one was more into it than Marshall. He spent hours watching youtube videos about how to make a winning derby car, spent a full day at his dad's shop welding weights into the car in very precise places, and spent another half a day bending the axles exactly right. The kids got to be in charge of the design and the paint jobs and both wanted their cars to look like characters from Minecraft (in fact, most of the derby cars at the race were either Minecraft or Lego cars).  They were both very excited about the whole event. Myles' car looked like Stampy, a character from Minecraft. Myles timidly introducing his car.  Mason confidently introducing his car. Mason's car was an Ender Dragon from  Minecraft. ...

For Easter/Conference weekend we went to Delta. The Easter Bunny made an early appearance to our house Saturday morning, and then we jumped in the van and were in Delta by about 10:30 to begin the fun. It was a busy weekend with Eric and his 5 kids, Nicole and William, and Deb and Russ. William and his friend set up an Easter Egg hunt in the yard for the little kids. Max was spying on them as they hid the eggs so he did really well :) McKay was confused about why everyone wanted these eggs until he realized they had chocolate in them! Grandma and Grandpa Delta raise chickens for eggs, and on Saturday afternoon they took all the kids (9 of them) to the store to let everyone pick out a baby chick to raise in Delta. Eric's kids had raised chickens before, but my kids were thrilled and amazed. They kept going out to the sun room to hold and pet their baby chicks. They wanted to bring them home but I convinced them to let them live in Delta (phew)! Max was especially i...